People Can’t Stop Getting Off On the Science of the Female Orgasm

According to this new theory, before mammals evolved ovarian cycles, the female orgasm stimulated ovulation through the release of the hormones prolactin and oxytocin. But unlike the male orgasm, which is essential for reproduction, the female orgasm doesn’t necessarily serve a clear function.

To better understand the original goal of the female orgasm, researchers looked for its neurological signature – a spike in the release of prolactin and oxytocin in the brain and endocrine system – in other mammal species.

It’s thought that the female orgasm of our ancestors around 75 million years ago was likely rooted in a similar mechanism with the study stating that “the pathways by which ovulation is induced” can also be traced in the human orgasm. As Science puts it, “because those hormonal surges no longer confer a biological advantage, orgasms during intercourse may be lost in some women”.

Despite the fact that mammals vary widely today, this trait may have been necessary to ovulation in species that were ancestral to humans.

For centuries, scientists have been curious about the evolutionary explanation for the female orgasm – a physiological phenomenon with no obvious objective.

In short, they concluded that the female organism may have originally been an adaptation which was directly involved in reproduction by inducing ovulation. Once again scientist at Yale and the Cincinnati Children’s hospital examined different species for the same.

Whether a Darwinian approach should be applied to the female orgasm is subject to debate. Current theories include encouraging women to have more sex and reproduce because it has become enjoyable.

“Prior studies have tended to focus on evidence from human biology and the modification of a trait rather than its evolutionary origin”.

The team explains that there is an abundance of physiological characteristics that can be traced across mammalian evolution.

But as a result of evolution, the clitoris has also shifted from inside to outside the vaginal canal in humans, taking away the link between orgasms and reproduction.

In some species, ovulation is actually induced by the male – in other words, the female only produces an egg after having an “orgasm”. The study shows that male-induced ovulation was first one to evolve, the evolution of cyclical or spontaneous ovulation is the derived trait of male-induced ovulation. This anatomical change made it less likely that the clitoris receives adequate stimulation during intercourse to lead to the neuro-endocrine reflex known in humans as orgasm.